Before the Europeans arrived in continental America, there was already a bustling civilization of Aztecs, Incas, and Indians there. What happened though is that when the Europeans arrived, they carried with them smallpox, a disease that is commonplace in Europe but unheard of in America. The Europeans were affected by it, but multigenerational exposure to it has minimized the fatality percentage on their population. The Americans, the real Americans, did not have such an advantage. It was new, their bodies quite literally didn't know what hit them. The population nearly got wiped out in what could be a worse percentage toll than the bubonic plague.
Why am I mentioning this? It's almost like the same thing with Windows and Mac users. Once upon a time Mac users were a niched minority and very few took interest in targeting them with viruses and malware. Fast forward to this year, there are now much much more Mac users than ever before and more and more virus writers and malware producers are targeting the Mac. Some of the types written for Mac are actually just ported versions of PC viruses and malware. While the PC counterparts still exist, people are very much wary of them now, and with the abundance of AV software and just a general distrust for pretty much most vectors of viruses, the damage is much more limited.
On the Mac however, it's quite the opposite. With the years of reinforcement of the idea that the Mac cannot get any virus, most of the userbase is the perfect new target for old viruses. Nobody's defending, nobody's wary and we just might be looking at the smallpox phenomenon all over again.
Too early to tell? Who knows?
Why am I mentioning this? It's almost like the same thing with Windows and Mac users. Once upon a time Mac users were a niched minority and very few took interest in targeting them with viruses and malware. Fast forward to this year, there are now much much more Mac users than ever before and more and more virus writers and malware producers are targeting the Mac. Some of the types written for Mac are actually just ported versions of PC viruses and malware. While the PC counterparts still exist, people are very much wary of them now, and with the abundance of AV software and just a general distrust for pretty much most vectors of viruses, the damage is much more limited.
On the Mac however, it's quite the opposite. With the years of reinforcement of the idea that the Mac cannot get any virus, most of the userbase is the perfect new target for old viruses. Nobody's defending, nobody's wary and we just might be looking at the smallpox phenomenon all over again.
Too early to tell? Who knows?
